Discovery
by H-thar
Summary: AU (AiRverse): Gift fic for Lady Ariadna. A 15-17 year old Hope encounters aspects of "The Talk" from various friends. In honor of Valentine's Day and my reviewers, this is a fun four-shot insert into the timeline of "Believe in Yesterday."
1. Cleansing

**A/N: Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! So this project started out as an attempt to pay back Lady Ariadna, along with all my other loyal reviewers, with another fun one-shot in the AiRverse. Among her many possible suggestions, she listed this gem of a fic starter: "That time when Hope was given The Talk. It would be funnier when different people tried to give it to him: Snow, Sazh, etc." What started out as a one-shot became a series of four one-shots, since various people didn't give Hope the Talk all at once (nor was it a straightforward sit-down, but opportunity-based). This little 4-shot story from Hope's POV moves from Maqui to Sazh to Lucil to Snow as they enlighten him on Talk-related aspects in the BiY timeline ^_^**

 **Again, shout-out to Lady Ariadna, and I hope you all enjoy!**

xxxxx

Discovery

Part 1: Cleansing

 _[Age: 15] During Hope's brief recovery stay in the barracks, after his release from quarantine and PSICOM's field extraction of Lightning and Snow's crystals._

"I'm not so sure about this…" Hope tried to explain to Maqui for the hundredth time. He shuffled along behind his trainer down the hall, gripping the towel around his waist like a life preserver.

Maqui made a sound somewhere between a laugh and an exasperated huff, but he did not stop. "Look, if you're gonna live here – and more importantly, share a room with me – you can't stay sweaty and gross. We can't change the design of these dark ages barracks just because you're _shy_."

"I'm not shy," Hope grumbled, his eyes solidly fixed on the flopping backs of Maqui's shower shoes on the floor in front of him. "Just self-conscious."

"Call it what you want. Won't last for long."

They rounded a corner into the entrance of the bathroom – hooks and benches cluttered with towels and undergarments lined the narrow space. Urinals and sinks identified the restroom area to the right. Nothing out of the ordinary.

It was the tiled wall to Hope's left, which wrapped around yet another corner and sent steam drifting into the whole space, that had him cringing back. Moderately quiet voices preceded a sudden burst of laughter.

 _They're going to laugh at me. Or just… stare._

Hope's wasn't sure which was worse. His throat tightened in revulsion.

Maqui pulled him along by the arm to the benches, gesturing at a few empty hooks. "Just hang the towel there."

Immobilized before the bench, Hope tried taking a few deep breaths and rationalizing the situation.

 _It's just proper hygiene._

 _Maybe I can will myself invisible._

 _Maq's kind of a shrimp_ _, and he doesn't seem to have any trouble._

That last thought snapped his eyes back to reality. His focus landed on his nearly translucent skin, prominent ribs, and the bruises on his inner arms from multiple IVs during his weeks in quarantine.

He was tired of feeling so exposed.

"Hey… Hope?" Maqui barely touched his arm and he jumped, slowly turning but not quite looking up from the bruises fast enough to avoid the inevitable.

The towel was gone. Hope could only blame the shock for his sudden deer-in-the-headlights paralysis, because his friend's anatomy was demonstrably no different from his own.

Maqui lifted his chin with an easy laugh. "I'm up here, mister innocent. Eyes forward."

"You startled me," Hope grumbled, glaring back at Maqui's smirk. "And don't call me that."

"Then stop blushing."

"I can't help it!" Hope said, swatting Maqui's hand away as he gesticulated in frustration. "I get even more embarrassed just by thinking about _being_ embarrassed!"

And of course, in the midst of flailing, his own towel hit the floor with a soft sound of doom. He scrambled to cover himself.

Maqui shook his head in disbelief, sighing out one more laugh as he yanked the goggles from his head. "Hope, no one gives a damn what you look like, okay? Look at me." He drew a circle around his face and neck. "If someone's in your line of sight, focus at or above the shoulders. Now grab the soap and stop overthinking it."

Beyond ready to have it over with, Hope nodded and did as he was told. He recovered his towel and hung it on a hook, careful not to look down at himself again and lose all nerve. His hands remained clamped around the bottle of all-in-one liquid soap while his eyes held a point on the back of Maqui's blond head as he followed him around the corner.

The situation within was not quite what Hope had imagined. Steam provided a small but appreciable amount of cover, and the space consisted of two centrally fixed poles with a circular array of six showerheads each. Only three other soldiers were in the room, all of them showering around the far post and carrying on a meaningless conversation.

One of them briefly looked over when Maqui turned on his showerhead at the closer post, just long enough to wave. The soldier did a double-take when he caught sight of Hope, but only a second or two of confused – and, Hope was fairly sure, disturbed – staring passed before he turned away.

 _That's right. Pay no attention to the undead over here._

A sudden sputtering stream of cold water hit Hope, and he gasped and hopped back. Maqui had turned on the adjacent showerhead and stood chuckling to himself.

"It'll warm up. Give it a minute."

"You're the devil," Hope muttered, rubbing his chill-prickled arms. No one ever expected instant warm water with settlement plumbing, but he would've liked a spare moment to brace himself.

Eventually, the water heated up and Hope stepped under the spray to wash away his troubles. He closed his eyes, lathered a palmful of soap in his hair and forgot for a minute that he was naked in front of complete strangers. A very slight smile broke through.

"Not half bad, huh?" Maqui quipped, nudging him with his elbow.

Hope swiped the water out of his eyes and side-eyed the interrupting party, snatching the soap bottle back from Maqui. He dumped another dollop into his palm and focused on lathering up his scrawny arms.

"You just had to ruin it."

"All part of my grand moral support scheme," Maqui crowed, happily combing back his mass of gold hair with his fingers until there were no suds to be found. He shook it out and let it flop over his eyes, which made his grin look even more ridiculous.

"I've discovered how to trigger your coping mechanism," he said. "You lose all inhibition when you get riled up. Like a berserker."

"That's not true!" Hope exclaimed, instantly slapping a hand over his mouth when their showering companions started laughing amongst themselves. The heat of embarrassment consumed his face again.

He dropped his voice to a whisper, arms stiff at his sides. "It's not."

"Chill yourself out, then. 'Cause right now you look like a cherry sucker." Maqui raked the hair out of his face and pried the soap bottle from Hope's nigh unyielding fingers, chuckling at the resistance.

"Look, just give me another thirty seconds and we're gone."

Hope remained a statue in the downpour. "Fine."

 _Not like I'm about to storm out of here alone._

The seconds ticked by. Lacking anything else to distract himself, Hope trained his ears on the inane conversation between the three other men. It had turned to the topic of a girl – someone's recent target of conquest, apparently. Hope caught the mention of fiery hair and a few choice descriptive phrases he would rather not have learned.

He heard his own name in the tale, complete with a few pertinent details, and knew beyond all doubt that Lucil was the girl in question. He trained his attention on the roar of water instead and tried to wash his ears out.

The showerhead shut off, and Maqui snatched his arm that same instant. "Let's go," he muttered, radiating tension.

Hope had a feeling he'd also taken issue with the other men's chatter.

They all but teleported back to the rows of benches. Maqui yanked his towel from its hook and began to dry off in silence.

Hope cautiously followed suit. "You were listening too, huh?"

"Right-o," Maqui announced with sarcastic brightness. He smacked the soap bottle onto the cubby shelf with undue force. "And I'd kinda like to get my mind off the subject."

"Let's talk about something else, then," Hope tried. He scrubbed the towel over his hair and returned it to his waist, plopping down on the bench. "If it's all the same, I'd rather not spend the rest of the evening dwelling on other people being insensitive jerks. I ask you about a thousand questions a day, so why not quiz me for once?"

Maqui drummed his fingers on the shelf for a long few seconds. His tense expression went blank and he secured his towel, slumping on the bench next to Hope.

"Don't take this as an insult, but I'd rather ask you and not sound stupid later," he muttered, running a hand through his hair. "Are you into girls?"

"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?" Hope said, fighting not to let his mind wander too far down that track.

Maqui shrugged and toyed with the goggles in his hands. "Some guys are into guys, some girls, some both or neither…"

"More variety than I thought." Hope quirked an eyebrow and crossed his arms. He continued to monitor Maqui's expression when he tacked on, "So what's your preference? Robot love or bust?"

Maqui snorted and shoved him slightly. "Good one," he said, sobering up to stare at the opposite bench in thought. "Have to say girls. Y'know, mostly." He snapped out of the brief trance and went back to messing with the goggles' strap.

"Mostly?" Hope laughed, prodding his shoulder. "So you've saved a little room for your future cyborg companion after all?"

The returning laugh was half-hearted. "Not exactly, Hope."

"Oh." The use of his actual name rang like a bell in his head and meant more than any explanation. "I-I'm sorry, it never really occurred to me…" he stammered, concentrating intently on the biggest bruise in the crook of his left arm.

"You're a real space cadet, sometimes," Maqui said, shaking his head. "But that's okay – can't expect you to know my history. You know I only tease you because you're my goofy apprentice, right?"

Hope looked him straight in the eyes, unflinching. "I'm not _that_ presumptuous. If you liked some guy out there, it would never be someone like me."

"Seriously?" Maqui's brow scrunched, as if he'd been insulted. "All joking aside, do you really hate yourself that much? I mean, this whole recovery stint is just a process that lots of people go through. You know it doesn't matter what you _look_ like to people who care about you."

"It's not just that," Hope muttered, wringing his thin hands. "I'm not a good person, Maq. I'm a burden to everyone, and I've caused nothing but trouble for the people close to me."

Maqui grumbled to himself, turned a bit, and clamped his hands on Hope's shoulders. He took a long-suffering breath and narrowed his eyes.

"Cut the bullshit. You're pushing Serah away to protect her, I get it, but you're not _actually_ the plague on humanity that PSICOM thinks you are," he pressed. "They are the problem. Not you. We clear on that?"

Hope nodded dumbly, his eyes going wider when he stopped to process his previous claims of guilt against himself through Maqui's lens. He still wished he'd had the courage to take his mother's place or save his father and his friends, but the fact remained.

The fal'Cie had started it all. Even PSICOM's reaction was just that – a response to a perceived threat that perpetuated a chain of terror.

"We're clear," Hope said at length, surprised at the lightness in his chest over the passing seconds after admission.

Maqui cracked a smile and rubbed his apprentice's hair into a tangled, swirling mess. "Could ya do me one more favor?" he asked to Hope's glare, completely unfazed. "Look in the mirror and tell yourself, 'I'm a beautiful flower in a dark cave.' Okay?"

"Haha. _Sure_ I am," Hope drawled.

"It's a metaphor, genius," Maqui huffed, rolling his eyes. "One of the older caretakers at the orphanage used to tell that to me. It means you're stuck in sub-ideal circumstances. You need help to get out of it, but one day, you'll make it to a better place and, y'know… bloom with potential or some shit."

He mumbled the last bit, snorting to himself. He had the audacity to blush.

Hope absolutely cracked up, earning a slap to the arm and a shove.

One of the toilets flushed in the adjacent restroom. Maqui stood from the bench in a rush and pulled his sniggering apprentice with him. He hauled Hope toward the exit, turning even more tomato-like when the soldier from the restroom commented on his poetic gift in passing.

"Don't ever make me explain that again," Maqui grumbled.

"I can't make any promises," Hope laughed. "I'm just so flattered."

"Shut up."

Hope was still fighting to control his chuckles as they reached Maqui's room. He prodded his silent, red-faced friend. "Can I ask one more thing?"

Maqui dragged a hand over his face, muffling a growl. "What is it?"

"Am I your favorite flower?"

"No," Maqui deadpanned, his blue eyes flat. "You'd be second. If only because you're pure evil."

Hope's eyebrows shot up as his curiosity spiked. "Oh? Then who's—?"

"Nope," Maqui cut across him, raising his hand like a wall. "I get to keep some secrets."

"I bet I can guess—"

"Not a chance."

"Girl or guy?"

"Cyborg, Hope," Maqui huffed. "Just tell yourself I'm in love with the cyborg I have yet to create."

"So," Hope dragged out, grinning sideways at his friend as he opened the door, "You're lying, and it's someone I know. Stand by to be found out."

Maqui looked back with a challenging smirk. "We'll see about that."

* * *

 **Endnote: More of beta-roomie's usual humor (I know it's been a while)!**

When Maqui explains that Hope will get over his self-consciousness quickly: Lol if boot camp is any indication, it will last exactly two days

When Hope remarks that Maqui is kind of a shrimp: Okay Pot. Have you met Kettle? Because ya'll should chat

At Hope's comment on feeling exposed: Ok now you made it sad again WHY DO YOU ALWAYS DO THIS

When Hope gets embarrassed and freezes over the whole naked thing: This is so awkwardly homoerotic I am dying from laughter hahaha XD like, it's not, but it's fanfic, so it feels like it should be. My fanfic instincts keep thinking that sex is just going to show up from out of nowhere like that fucking Microsoft Word paperclip, all unnecessary and weird. :P

When Maqui makes a teasing remark in the shower: Ok Maqui, don't you know the rules? NO AWKWARD CHIT CHAT ;P

After Hope naively asks why Maqui would even ask if he was interested in girls: Oh you sweet summer child. [links him to the doubtless hundreds of Hope slash fics that definitely exist. Like, I'm not even in your fandom and I know this for a fact. IT'S FANFIC LAW.]

When Maqui remarks that he is into girls 'mostly': Jfc this is a lead-in to a porno. This is Robin Sparkles-level of porno prompting. I'M JUST SAYING.

As Maqui is offended at Hope's self-deprecation and explains that his appearance doesn't really matter (because beta-roomie always pushing things): "Although now that we're talking about it, you're a sweet piece of ass and I would love to bang you HAHA LOL JUST SOME FRIENDLY TEASING BETWEEN BROS. WHILE WE'RE NAKED."

After the passing soldier teases Maqui's poetic example devolves into embarrassment: You should work for Hallmark, Maqui.

When Hope jokingly asks if he is the favorite flower: You totally want Maqui to have a crush on you, don't you? Like, you didn't think about it before, but that's because you didn't know you had options. Now you do. GET IT HOPE. GET IT. Turn this story into the porno its intro deserves.


	2. Elder Wisdom

Part 2: Elder Wisdom

 _[Age: 16] Morning of the doomed settlement test flight, aboard BARTHOLOMEW, prior to its crash in the commercial district square._

"Adamantoise herd on the move, just ahead," Hope declared, exerting all his will power to stamp down the enthusiasm in his voice. It wouldn't do to burst Sazh's eardrums over the headset. Still, his hands trembled on the sights. Every new view from the transport's height sent a surge of adrenaline through his frame.

Sazh chuckled into his mouthpiece. "Do ya, now? Well, I guess it's that time of year." His voice came through distinctly over their linked headsets, untouched by roaring air noise in the cockpit. "Didn't that bestiary volume I dug up last month cover migratory patterns?"

"Yeah, it mentioned the biggest herd movement happened in late spring and fall. They have some kind of stubborn instinct to find the deepest, darkest crevasses in the Steppe for mating," Hope explained, snorting briefly. "As if anything that gigantic could ever really hide. The sounds echo all over the canyons."

He remembered waking to the mournful bellowing a time or two in the night, during their l'Cie journey through the Archylte Steppe. He had wondered if the beasts were dying in agony. Of course, a later encounter had made the situation abundantly clear…

"Don't mock the poor things for tryin' to be halfway decent about it," Sazh said. "Got more self-awareness than you, boy."

His words held a slight edge, and Hope pulled back from the sights. He stared at Sazh in wide-eyed confusion. The pilot brought a gloved hand to his face, relaxed his rigid posture and wagged his head.

"Sorry 'bout that. Didn't mean to snap, but you could do with a little discretion, lately," he clarified. He turned dark, weary eyes on Hope. "I've just got to wonder... Don't you feel even the teeniest bit off about putting yourself in questionable situations? I mean, layin' one on your best friend? Sleeping right next to Serah? It's not exactly normal."

Hope shrugged, a tingle of heat creeping up his neck when he really considered the charges. He fidgeted with the headset cord.

"I don't think 'normal' is all it's cracked up to be," he muttered. "'Normal' would've kept me ignorant. It would've landed me in an orphanage, if I wasn't outright arrested and detained for being some abomination of a l'Cie. 'Normal' was my workaholic dad only showing me some attention when he got concerned that I wasn't behaving 'normally.'"

He clenched his fingers around the cord, frustrated that his nose was beginning to burn. "A shut-in, he called me. A waste of potential. Socially inept. He wasn't teasing me like Maqui, though – he meant it. And he didn't do one thing to help me improve, he just wanted to criticize. I've been forgiving him since we reunited, but I never want us to go back to that life…"

"Then you won't," Sazh said, the gruffness in his voice giving away how much the confession had bothered him. He cleared his throat and refocused on the controls. "You've got more family than you can handle now, son. I only meant to give you a little guidance, for your own good. Doesn't sound like you got much mentoring before, and now you're gettin' to be a young man. It's about time."

Hope sighed heavily into the headset mouthpiece. "Light was my mentor."

"Maybe in battle, but she wasn't about to give you any man-to-man life advice. Don't tell me _she_ gave you the Talk," Sazh said, chuckling for a second at the words he'd spoken.

"The Talk?" Hope looked over at him as though he'd declared the sky was blue. "Sazh, I've lived through middle school. We all had basic sex ed presentations that make any old sugar-coated lectures obsolete. Most holes in my understanding were filled by Serah's anatomy book."

"Besides that," he said under his breath, "I kind of had an eyewitness experience with the wildlife on Pulse that definitely left a lasting impression."

He shrank back in his seat, shaking his head vigorously to dislodge the memory of moaning adamantoise that foamed at the mouth and created miniature earthquakes in their heated frenzy. Lightning had dragged him from the scene when the tremors knocked him off his feet near a bush.

For all his trouble, he'd been unable to eat the berries acquired.

Sazh's jaw had nearly dropped to the dash. He collected himself, sat up straight and spluttered, "What are they teaching kids these days? I swear."

"They're teaching us what's going on with our crazy bodies," Hope stated. "Before we do anything stupid."

"That may be," Sazh said, "But I highly doubt those classes are covering old-fashioned decency."

Hope laughed outright, rocking back and forth in his seat. He'd seen more than his fair share of propriety and its shamefully limited purpose in life.

"You know I had a _very_ proper upbringing, right?" He grinned at the skeptical pilot like he was withholding a secret, but finally decided to just expound.

"My father was a Sanctum official, mom was just his wife, and I was just his son," Hope clarified, but Sazh only crossed his arms. He shook the pilot's elbow to reinforce his point. "I'm serious! That's all anyone cared about, and it came with a long list of expectations – high academic performance, attending dinner parties with stupidly complicated silverware, smiling at the right people at the right time and mostly keeping your mouth shut. But that's not the world we live in anymore. I stopped caring, just like everyone else."

"So you're not gonna concern yourself with manners?" Sazh asked, serious as the grave. "You'll just let your emotions run wild and do whatever you feel like?"

"No, I'm too introverted for that," Hope said, and he laughed again. He added more quietly, "I like my privacy, and I've figured out how to keep certain… things under control. I doubt they cover the added benefit to lone showers in the traditional Talk – not that it's all that interesting."

Sazh face-palmed with an audible smack. "Hope, for the love of all that's holy… Is this the years of repression talkin', or just your hyper curiosity?"

"Well, I know my biology," he answered innocently. "Humans, and some other species, just do things that feel good and relieve stress. I'm sure that goes for females, too, but I'm not so sure how." His brow wrinkled in thought, and it was a full minute later before he noticed that Sazh was still in a mode of stoic concentration, likely puzzling out the least awkward way to approach the subject. It made him snort.

"Is that explained in the Talk?" Hope asked. "Because I really don't know much about girls beyond the basic anatomy and menstrual cycle bits. Serah thinks I don't notice, but she gets really cranky about mid-month and takes a lot of anti-inflammatory pills. Oh, and I obviously know where babies come from." At that, he rolled his eyes.

Sazh had narrowed his eyes, either trying to find some speck of insecurity in the boy next to him, or in open disapproval of its absence.

"Well then, Mr. Expert, I take it you've seen it all. Must've walked in on your parents or somethin'," he said, raising an eyebrow. "I mean, that's obviously where _you_ came from. Bet you've even seen a live birth, too. Am I right?"

Hope first paled and then burned with embarrassment, staring pointedly at the dash. His confidence shriveled to raisin proportions. "N-no, I'd rather not think about my parents that way. And I don't think I'd want to see a live human birth. The neighbor's dog had puppies once – that was traumatizing enough. She made this _awful_ noise."

"Yeah, well, that's a mite better than your own beloved wife wailing and nearly breakin' your hand," Sazh said, completely unfazed as he adjusted their course by about twenty degrees to begin a return track. "My son came into the world quiet as a mouse, but you wouldn't know it from how he torpedoed out o' there. My wife had more bruises down south than a prize fighter's face and maybe a dozen stitches, and little Dajh had to get his lungs suctioned. Not to mention the placenta got dished up like a raw steak. I nearly passed out on the spot."

A choked sound escaped Hope, and he slipped off the headset, cowering in his seat. He covered his ears for good measure. None of it could prevent his stomach from clawing its way up his throat as they continued to turn.

It didn't help matters when he thought about someone like Serah in that predicament. Hope honestly feared for her life. Snow was such a giant compared to her – to anyone, really, but the thought made his head spin. And wasn't he always bragging about how they'd have this huge family together?

 _Easy for him to say._

Sazh roared with laughter, then, and Lucil popped her head into the cockpit to investigate the commotion.

"What's going on up here?" she shouted over the air noise, looking back and forth between the pilot in hysterics and his co-pilot trying to shut off all his senses from reality.

Wiping the tears from his eyes, Sazh smirked back at her. "Eh, I just took him down a notch. Smarty-pants here thought he didn't need the Talk."

"Oh, damn." She ran a hand over her face, then stared at the dash in thoughtful silence. A few moments later, she reached out to prod Hope's arm.

He jolted in his seat and shifted away, horrified gaze unable to focus on her face. The soldier looked back at him with guarded sympathy.

"You know, it's probably not as bad as you're thinking, right now," she tried, and he covered his mouth.

"I think I'm gonna be sick," he choked, shrinking down into the seat and praying it would swallow him. He couldn't shut out the grisly images conjured by his own imagination any more than he could stop the ship's rattling in the crosswinds. By his mind's account, Serah would surely die a bloody and painful death by childbirth.

Lucil sighed and pulled a paper bag from under his seat. As she handed it off, she tacked on a last-ditch attempt at comfort. "Look, you really shouldn't sweat it. Girls get the short end of the stick in this deal. Always."

Sazh snickered to himself again, and Hope heaved into the bag.

"What the hell did I say?" she asked, slamming one hand on Sazh's armrest and narrowing suspicious eyes at the pilot.

He tapped a finger on the display, still smirking to himself.

"Let's just say he knows where babies come from, and how they make that _grand_ entrance into our lives."

Hope heaved into the bag a second time, scrunching his eyes shut.

Lucil grumbled a few curses. Hope was only vaguely aware of her presence beyond the brown paper in his hands, so he jumped at the sensation of his harness being undone. She pulled him up from the seat slowly, backing out of the cockpit entrance in a huff.

"Just shut up and fly, old man," she called in parting to Sazh.

Hope collapsed into the nearest bucket seat.

"Did you take anything for airsickness?" Lucil asked, strapping in next to him.

He shook his head. He didn't trust words to come out of his mouth if he opened it just yet.

"Guess you've learned that lesson," Lucil remarked. She crossed her arms over her chest and sat in the noisy silence for a long minute.

"You do know pregnancy isn't a foregone conclusion, right?" she ventured. When he didn't respond, she continued, "Didn't you get the spiel on contraception?"

He nodded, barely finding his voice. "Back in school. It didn't sound all that reliable."

"Not just condoms," Lucil sighed, rubbing at the wrinkle forming between her eyebrows. "Women have plenty of options to protect ourselves. Pills, shots, intra-uterine devices, implants… You name it. It's standard issue for military, too. Just look."

With more effort that it should've taken, Hope turned his head. Lucil pointed to a location on her inner left arm.

"I don't think Serah would use anything like that," he croaked. "She loves kids about as much as Snow wants them. She'll probably be permanently pregnant once he comes back."

"So this is about Serah."

He nodded.

"Well, for starters, women have been having babies for a really long time," she ventured, and Hope curled up around his knees in the seat.

Lucil poked his shoulder, handing off a canteen for him to drink. "Seriously. Modern medicine makes the whole thing pretty safe. They can surgically remove babies with a C-section if they're too big or something's just not going right. And believe me, I can put two and two together about her choice of fiancé being problematic."

Hope snorted in spite of himself, a little of the water he was drinking burning its way up his nose.

"Thanks for that, Lucil."

"You know," she said after the comfortable silence had settled again, "I don't exactly understand why Katzroy the Wise decided to use scare tactics on you. What the hell did you say?"

Hope shrugged. "Careless things. I thought I could outsmart him. Plain and simple." He rubbed anxiously at his arm. "Honestly, I've never dealt with 'fatherly' confrontation beyond shutting down and backing off, before. And with Snow, I completely exploded. It's just easier to talk to Serah, like it was with Mom. I already trust her, you know."

 _Light was the same, once I got to know her._

"You trust me, then?" Lucil asked.

"Well, yeah," he laughed. "With my life, right? It's in your job description."

"True," she said, utterly without inflection. "I meant as a friend."

Hope got the distinct impression that he had pushed a wrong button. He smiled and tugged her sleeve until she stopped sitting there at stiff attention and looked at him.

"Hey, I trust you," he said. "Do you trust me back?"

"Not a chance."

His smile crumpled and he tried not to let it become a pout, largely without success. "Why not?"

"Don't take it personally," Lucil began, averting her gaze to stare at the empty seats across the cabin. She busied herself with tucking a loose section of her bun into place. "I don't trust anyone. When you trust people, you start to depend on them, and ultimately you've opened yourself up to a world of hurt when they let you down."

"So… I shouldn't trust you?"

She shrugged. "It's your choice. You're kind of a hopeful person in general – corny as that sounds. I don't really hope for the best in people, anymore."

"I can't help it. Still trying to figure out what I was named for," Hope muttered to himself, reliving another one of Lightning's near-impossible imperatives.

" _Survive,"_ she'd demanded. _"Find the hope you were named for."_

It reminded him of the moment he had almost given up.

"Hey, Lucil?" he said suddenly, waiting for her to meet his eyes. "I got some pretty good advice on that front when we were being hunted down. At one point, I didn't have any hope for the future, or people, or anything. I said I didn't need it to keep fighting.

"But I got told off. Light said it was no way to live – just a way to die. That stuck with me."

"Light, huh," Lucil said, more to herself than him. "Sergeant Farron, then."

"Yeah." A shadow descended on the cabin, and for a few fleeting moments, Hope was sure he no longer saw the familiar bucket seats and metal hull, but the glassy leaves of the Gapra Whitewood before his eyes. He still saw her smiling and urging him forward. He saw his father being led away from the wreckage of their home, and his friends chatting around a campfire in the wilds of Pulse.

He tried not to think of how desperately he hoped for everyone's return.

"You're not exactly wrong, though," he said. The tears rushed in and dropped over the ledge of his eyes to a silent death. "It hurts like hell, sometimes."

Lucil cracked a sad smile. She dug around in one of her pouches and pulled out a rag – the one she kept for gunblade polishing. She tossed it at his face.

"At least I can help clean up the mess, right?" she teased.

"You shouldn't have to," Hope said, wiping off his face as best he could. He took a cleansing breath. "I've got to keep it together for Serah and everyone else."

Lucil shook her head. "You can't hide it from everyone all the time," she warned. "That's unrealistic. And kind of unhealthy."

"I know," Hope sighed, and his mouth turned up into a self-deprecating smile. "I slip up plenty. And I don't really hide anything from you or Maq."

"Guess not," she muttered. "But why us?"

Hope sat for several seconds trying to puzzle out his own reasoning. In the end, he just scratched his head and took a stab at explaining it aloud.

"I don't know," he said, smiling crookedly, "Maybe I trust you guys like I trust the sun to come up. I'm grateful for that."

"You know we're not immortal, right?" Lucil said, quirking an eyebrow.

Hope tossed the damp rag back to her. "I'll take my chances."

* * *

 **Endnote: Beta-roomie's fun continues (a little bit).**

As Hope thinks back on his run-in with the mating adamantoise: Yep, because wildlife mating habits are definitely the basis you want for human relationships. "Oh do you like that girl? JUST GO MOUNT HER. DISPLAY YOUR DOMINANCE."

After Sazh's description of Dajh's birth: Dude, I've seen a live childbirth and this is one of the most disgusting descriptions I've ever read. Wtf Sazh. Go back to being a conservative-minded prude. Ew.

When Hope eventually pukes: I'd say that this is a huge overreaction on Hope's part, but Sazh's description was really gross, so. :/


	3. Under the Surface

Part 3: Under the Surface

 _[Age: 16] During the escaped group's interim tent stay at Charlie Station, after Serah's rescue from PSICOM Central but prior to establishment of the GC remote base._

"Hope, I need that plant," Maqui whispered, puppy-eyed. He had him by the front of his t-shirt, out of sight from the bustle of campfire setup. "This is my reputation on the line! I can't make a halfway decent soup without the key ingredient. Understand?"

It was going to be dark soon. Hope heard the crickets beginning to test their instruments and felt the chill settling on the air. It made him sleepy after the long afternoon of chores, but his friend's desperate grip kept him from slipping under.

He focused glazed eyes on Maqui again, not even trying to pry himself free.

"And there was absolutely no way you could've gotten it earlier, because…?"

"Like I said, it's the bulb of a moonsoul bloom," he huffed, half-heartedly pushing Hope away. He kicked the dirt underfoot in contempt. "You can't even see the flowers until twilight, and there's nothing else distinctive about the dumb plant. Just that bluish-white blossom."

"So you need me," Hope recanted, pausing to stifle a yawn, "to go clear across the camp, crawl through a dank hole into who knows what kind of bug-infested cave, and dig up some bulbs. Sounds peachy."

He ran a hand through his sweaty hair and exhaled heavily, looking back up at Maqui with narrowed eyes. "Is there any payout to this mission?"

The smirk he shot back set off a hundred alarms, but Hope was too worn-out to care. Maqui planted a hand on his shoulder and assured him, "Lebreau's the one who tipped me off on the location. She said there's nothing to be afraid of in there, but I'm perma-forbidden from the spot."

"I'm afraid to ask why," Hope deadpanned.

"Well, I'd be a dead man if I crossed her," Maqui laughed. "And I'm bound to secrecy about the stupid plant already."

"Doing a bang-up job on that," Hope muttered, rolling his neck for good measure before he snatched the sack from Maqui's hand. "Might as well get this over with." He tromped off over the trampled weeds that marked a web of unnamed paths across the camp.

The moon had just begun to rise. It only took twenty minutes to reach the collection of boulders that shielded the cave entrance, but Hope was honestly glad of the darkness falling around him. He could've sworn that several soldiers' eyes watched his progress from their tents, and he didn't want to read their faces.

The cave entrance was a low opening mostly overgrown with hanging moss, which Hope discovered served as a curtain. He got on his hands and knees, his shoulders scraping against the very narrow tunnel, and slowly advanced until it flared wider and higher for walking. He couldn't imagine that many of the soldiers would even fit into Lebreau's "off-limits" cave.

 _That might explain why she bothered to ban Maqui, but still…_

Hope rubbed his eyes, looking side to side at the dimly visible surfaces. Something was giving off a light source – a whitish glow feathered around the tunnel exit a few paces ahead. He also heard the echo of higher voices and occasional ringing laughter.

He pressed against the stony wall at the mouth of the exit, held his breath, and peered around the corner. His wide eyes fell immediately on the goal.

Hundreds of soft, radiant flowers stretched over a patch of green oasis that covered most of the cavern floor. The stems seemed to reach toward the shafts of moonlight pouring in through several small openings in the ceiling, and each bloom magnified the bluish-white illumination to fill the space. Clouds of moths floated over the field, fluttering in their erratic dance. The soft gurgle of a cavern stream drew his eyes for less than a second before they drifted back to the main attraction.

Hope could only stare in awed silence. His body had inched forward of its own accord, intent on reaching the ethereal flowers, before he felt a shiver of apprehension.

 _When did it get so quiet?_

A hand clamped down on his arm and yanked him sideways so abruptly that he yelped. Hope snapped his gaze up to see Lucil, glaring at him with fiery blue indignation.

"Hope, what the hell are you doing here?"

He remained paralyzed, so she gave him a shake. "C'mon, spit it out!"

"I-I just," he stammered, throat dry and eyes clamped shut. "Maq asked me to… get those," he limply gestured toward the flowers, "for a soup. That's all, I swear."

When Lucil only growled to herself and loosened her grip, he dared to crack an eye open. A group of probably twenty women had surrounded them, most wearing tank tops and military trousers below their shrewd stares. Several held solar lamps that cast frightening shadows on their faces. Hope felt keenly like a foolish little fox in a very tough hen house.

"Damn it, Lebreau must've let it slip," Lucil huffed, redirecting her accusing eyes past Hope. He followed the familiar laugh and turned his head, not surprised at all when Lebreau dismissed the charges with a flip of her hair.

"Maqui just wanted to know where to find the flower," she said, hand on her hip. "I told him he was banned from the premises, but I _may_ have expected him to show up and learn a lesson. Whoops."

She stepped closer to ruffle Hope's silver hair. "Don't worry, we'll go easy on ya."

"Easy?" Hope practically squeaked. He backed away from Lebreau and her thinly veiled threat, straight into Lucil. She caught him by the shoulders.

"You know it's my job to keep him safe," Lucil warned, still talking past Hope's head. "Kinda trumps your little games."

Lebreau wore a wicked smirk. "Aw, but we could use a pair of skilled hands. No harm, no foul."

Hope's face turned purple in the blue light, and several of the other women snickered. Lucil's grip on his shoulder's tightened.

"You want another gardener? Then he's with me. I'll show him the ropes."

At the mention of gardening, Hope's chest deflated with relief. He'd had a bad feeling about the weight to Lebreau's words, but she _was_ one to tease.

"If I help," he said quietly, surprised at his ability to dare make a request, "Can I take a few bulbs to Maqui?"

The fair audience laughed again, scoffing at his suggestion as they turned back to whatever-it-was they'd been doing. A few retired to one corner with seedlings arranged on rock ledges under a large opening above, while another pair went to a forgotten laundry basket by the stream. Several more ended up at a makeshift stone table where they picked up haggling over a spread of items – glimmering stones, knives, small bottles of different colored liquids, nondescript paper packets, and other assorted items that he didn't recognize were in play.

The rest of the soldiers picked out positions in the gleaming field and set to work with small hand rakes. He watched them furrow into the soil, their activities closer for scrutiny as Lucil pulled him along by the hand.

A heady perfume from the flowers flooded Hope's nose when they reached the edge of the grass. He swayed where he stood, struggling to concentrate and clinging to Lucil's arm when the room tried to spin.

"Stop… moving…" he slurred. He registered surprise and concern on the soldier's face before she sat him on the ground.

She lifted his chin and ordered, "I need you to count backward from fifteen, three counts in, three counts out. Okay?"

Hope bobbed his head and started the count. Gradually, his thoughts began to clear as he adjusted to the lower, less fragrant air, and the cave lost its strange halos of light. The brightness remained, but none of the fog.

His right hand wrapped around the handle of a triangular spade. He stared blankly at the tool. "Are we… planting new bulbs? Digging up weeds?

"First, we're aerating the soil," Lucil said, stabbing her three-pronged instrument into the packed dirt and wriggling it mercilessly. "The new seedlings will need healthy places to take root."

"And mass-producing moonsoul blooms is important because…?"

Lucil sat back with a huff and dusted her hands. "Listen. These plants were just about wiped out, thanks to some of the dumbass soldiers in this installation. You wouldn't know it, but there used to be a valley full of dayring blossoms here – the 'male' counterpart to these beauties. They grow from the same base plant and bloom in direct sunlight," she explained, prodding the smaller, purplish bud on an adjacent stem.

"Inconveniently, these bulbs were also the prized ingredient in Charlie Station's famous soup."

Hope rolled the spade between his hands, his thinking still a bit cloudy from the surrounding air. "It must've really been something," he wondered aloud, "if they ate the valley clean. You ever try it?"

"Once," she bit out, "And I wish I hadn't. Wasn't all that special to taste, but it certainly made every idiot in the vicinity think he was hot stuff for a couple of hours. I've never seen so many fights and random hookups in a single night."

"It's a drug, then," Hope remarked, lifting one delicate petal with the tip of his finger. "I should've guessed. Did you get into trouble?"

"Not exactly." She skewered the earth again, redirecting a portion of the negative energy Hope felt radiating from her. "I prefer to differentiate between making a life mistake and formal military punishment. I did something stupid, like the rest of them, but no one actually got in trouble."

It was not the first time he'd heard military tales of woe and conquest from Lucil or other soldiers. He could guess where things might've gone.

"Stupid as in a trip to someone else's tent?" he ventured. "Or a fist to someone else's face?"

"Both, actually. In sequence."

"Oh." Hope's eyes went a little too wide, but Lucil never looked up to see them. Teasing questions aside, he hadn't expected that answer, and he hated his own mind for travelling down a few forbidden paths and spinning up inappropriate questions. Worse, he hated the heat in his face and the defensive impulse that flared in his chest.

 _At least she clocked the guy._

He cleared his throat and tacked on, "Um, when was all of this?"

"My first assignment," she said with a shrug. "They transferred a bunch of us back to the settlement district after that, since it became abundantly clear that newbies shouldn't be stationed at remote outposts in the first place. I'd only been back a couple of weeks when Serah dragged you in."

A long minute of silence passed, punctuated only by the furrowing of their tools in the damp soil.

"I guess… I still don't understand," Hope said, prodding the sad little dayring bud. "If consuming these plants caused all kinds of trouble, wouldn't the military ban them? And if they did, wouldn't the flower population recover? I mean, it's been a while since you were here."

Lucil pushed upright and sat back on her heels, violet eyes hard as crystal. "Oh, they were banned, all right, after the leadership busted up a ring of drug-traffickers. The idiots thought it might be a good idea to harvest all the bulbs they could get their hands on, dry them out, crush them into powder and sell them. PSICOM got involved and bombed this whole outpost with a special herbicide to kill off the plants, just to be safe."

"So these cave-dwellers are the only ones that survived," Hope concluded, his spirits sinking when he thought about the essentially purged species. He looked out over the subterranean field and noticed for the first time that every single plant had one or two sealed buds.

"They can't pollinate down here, can they?"

Lucil laughed in that parched way she often saved for a bad joke. "Not naturally, no. These ladies have to hand pollinate them, harvest the seeds – the whole bit."

"That sounds like an awful lot of work, just to save some pretty flowers," Hope said. He dropped his spade as Lucil dropped her rake, his shrewd expression mirroring hers in a brief contest of wills. She was withholding something important, and he intended to ferret it out.

Lucil cracked a smile. She wasn't about to budge. "It's not as hard as it sounds," she said, bending the stem of a dayring bud toward her. "Watch."

Curiosity held him fast. Hope watched her carefully massage the bud, rolling it between her thumb and forefinger until the petals began to loosen their protective grip. A small pair of anther laden with pollen peeped out.

"All right, I need you to tilt that bloom toward me," Lucil directed, nodding at the plant in front of him, "and do _not_ sneeze. Take a deep breath."

"I-I don't think that's going to reach—"

"Doesn't have to." She severed the bud from its stem with her fingernail. Hope winced, and she gave him a flat stare. "What? It'll grow back. Just hold that bloom already."

He held his breath and cupped the flower in his left hand. The moonsoul bloom's petals were velvety soft against his fingers, and so thin that he could see faint purple veins on the surface. The skin of his inner wrist was a near-match.

Hope pondered that odd connection for a moment before his eyes were drawn to the single projection from the bloom's center. Lucil twirled the tip of the dayring bud around it like a paintbrush, clockwise, counterclockwise and back again, until the stigma held a healthy coating of golden powder.

"See? Nothing to it." She pulled his hand back from the bloom and dropped the severed bud into it. "Hold onto that."

Hope released the breath he'd been holding like a drawn-out sigh. He stared at the shrinking bud in his palm, pitying it for no real reason.

' _A beautiful flower in a dark cave,' huh? Never had a chance to bloom._

"What's it good for, dead?" he asked.

Lucil patted his shoulder and bit her lip, obviously holding back a laugh. "Suck it up, Hope. We're not giving it a funeral. Flowers have a pretty short life cycle."

"But this one didn't even have a life," he muttered. He shook himself and finally raised his head, searching her expression. "What's the real reason for cultivating so many bulbs? These soldiers obviously don't want to make dangerous drugs or get them into the hands of anyone who would. And they could just clone the existing flowers by letting the bulbs divide instead of mimicking sexual reproduction. Do they need so much variegation?"

"What are you, some kind of green thumb?" Lucil quipped.

"Mom was into gardening. Mostly perennials."

"Hmph, not surprising," she said after a moment's hesitation. She cleared her throat and wiped off the excess pollen from her fingers onto her trousers. "I guess I might as well explain, if you promise to keep it to yourself."

Hope managed a weak smile. "Easy enough."

Lucil stood and dusted off, helping him up to take a tour of the cavern. They passed the many spaces he'd noticed initially, finally stopping by one shady corner with rows of drying blooms, leaves and buds.

"Consider it a side-business," Lucil commented, gesturing at a stack of small paper packets. "The trace amount of desired chemicals in these dried flowers are harmless, but they maintain just enough of an effect to be valuable for trade. The moonsoul blooms make a very fragrant herbal tea, and the dayring buds and leaves can replace use of the bulbs as a safe cooking ingredient. Better plant variety just means diverse, hardy product."

"Okay, so…" Hope began, stuffing his hands – dayring bud included – into his pockets. "What's the desired chemical effect?"

Lucil stiffened for a fraction of a second, then tried to play it off. "It's an aphrodisiac. Pretty weak at best, and I think it's mostly superstition and placebo effect – people just trick themselves into believing it's, y'know, firing them up."

Hope turned to her, one eyebrow raised. "How do you know it doesn't work?"

"Do you ever stop asking questions?" she huffed.

"I do when I get what I want."

Lucil crossed her arms, dark eyes weighing his resolve. "All right. I know because I've _tried_ it. Now can I just trade you some buds for Maqui's dumb soup, if you drop the subject?"

"Nope," he said, smirking at her defensiveness. "But I appreciate the offer."

Wicked laughter sounded nearby, and Lebreau pranced up behind him out of the shadows. She draped her arm across his shoulders and pinched his cheek, impervious to his glare. Her eyes caught Lucil in a sidelong glance.

"He's not that innocent, Loosey Goosey. You sure he can keep this little operation on the down-low?"

"Don't ever call me that," Lucil hissed, her face burning the purple-tinted color of her hair in the cave. "And yes, Hope's sworn to secrecy. You can elaborate all you want."

"Nah," Lebreau sighed, either bored or disappointed. She dropped her arm and faced Hope, patting his head and laughing at the persistent glare. He wasn't sure if he was more irritated with her on his own behalf or Lucil's.

A retaliatory flame flickered in his chest.

"I'm sure smarty-pants here already understands the plight of our sex-deprived customer base," Lebreau said casually. "Hope the product line didn't come as a shock."

It did not. The explanation made sense, considering the potent effect of the bulbs that Lucil had described before. Hope blinked back at her, unfazed by the information but aiming to make trouble.

Lebreau smirked again. "Any questions for me, hon?"

"Not really," Hope said, watching her smile shrink at his cool response. Lucil's eyes widened, but she didn't interrupt him. "I mean, it's hard for me to picture you playing pimp to Maqui, but you basically lured him to this soup ingredient. Good for him, I guess. Do you sexy-spike drinks at the bar for your special customers, too?"

It was Lebreau's turn to be flustered, and she flailed her hands as she sputtered in defense, "I am not Maqui's pimp! I just wanted him to get stuck in a cave full of ladies and act all goofy and awkward. Ugh, I swear, Hope— He's like a brother to me. Admittedly lacking in game, but still."

She blew a lock of hair out of her face and recovered her impish grin. "As for the bar service, you can't expect me to admit trade secrets for free," she said with a wink.

Lucil nearly choked on her own laughter, it came so fast. She snatched one of the paper packets from the stone ledge and pressed it into Hope's palm.

"Just take it. I told you, it won't really do anything to blondie or anyone else. It'll be diluted to nothing in a soup that big."

"Hey, you can't just give away the merchandise, either!" Lebreau whined.

Hope stuffed the packet deep in his coveralls, grinning like a fiend at the fussy woman. "You mean your falsely advertised merchandise? Consider it payment for my silence, 'Breaumancer."

One of Lebreau's eyebrows shot up as her eyes lit with the promise of a challenge, and Hope knew he'd made a wrong move. She propped her hands on her hips in preparation to give him a run for his money. He backed against the stone ledge but could not for the life of him wipe the grin off his face.

"You'll pay for that," she threatened in a pleasant voice, lifting his chin with her finger and thumb. "My merchandise is the genuine article – can't take the word of miss fifteen-shots-to-drunk here. She's numb to most pain meds, too."

Lucil just rolled her eyes and wisely glared at the wall.

"And I see my nickname-crazy brother's got you doing more than his dirty work, now," Lebreau tacked on. "Sounds like he's getting more creative."

Hope tilted his head, wide eyes shining. "Aw, but I was proud of that one. Why does Maq get all the credit?"

"Digging a hole, pretty boy." She shook her dark head slowly, shaking his in a mirroring motion by the grip on his chin as she stepped closer.

"You think so?" he teased. Lebreau was playing on sheer proximity, and it set Hope's nerves on fire in spite of all his reasoning, but he stubbornly met her eyes and refused to back down. "Guess I must be doing something right."

"Oh, honey," she laughed lightly, leaning right next to his ear. "You've got a lot to learn."

Hope squeezed his eyes shut.

 _Damn it, I'm in over my head. Abort!_

He felt rather than saw Lucil snatch his hand, his eyes flying open as she dragged him from the scene at a sprint. Lebreau's triumphant laughter followed them away. His thoughts rattled all over the place, a mess of colorful blobs when he caught another whiff of the overwhelming flowers, but he was beyond grateful when they reached the way out. The soldier shoved him ahead of her, and he dove to his hands and knees to scrape down the tunnel.

The instant he was free of the mossy curtain at the entrance, Hope lunged for the open field and bolted through the dark. He could barely hear Lucil's footfalls behind him, just enough to keep him moving. They were almost to the semicircle of familiar tents, lit up by a small fire-pit, when she snagged him by the shirt to a screeching halt.

"What… is it?" he wheezed, doubling forward. "Did she… follow?"

He turned to see Lucil resting her hands on her head. "No, but she'll be back later," she huffed. "You really will pay for that stunt."

Her nearly motionless silhouette looked especially stern against the surrounding cliffs, until a laugh broke her composure. "Or I'll pay, more likely. Damn it, Hope…"

"That's five saves, now," he said, shaking his head and smiling. "Sorry for the trouble. Can I make it up to you?"

"Yeah, just do me a favor and go on to the camp alone," Lucil requested. "You promised not to mention anything about the flowers, but I'd prefer that you not mention me, either."

Hope sagged a bit. "I can't even tell Maqui about how you saved me from Lebreau's evil seduction just now?"

"Nope."

"And gave me the special soup ingredient?"

"Not a word," she insisted.

"Why?"

"Look, I don't even want to be placed at the scene. There are people on this base who already know me and like to gossip, and they've got more than enough ammunition," she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I'd rather not involve our crew. If anyone asks, I was off patrolling, got it?"

"Sure, I guess," Hope begrudgingly agreed, shuffling his boots in the dirt. Lucil started to turn and go, but he tugged the back of her belted uniform.

"What?"

"You know we don't care, right?" he said, talking past a lump that suddenly formed in his throat. "About your past, or anything. I'm sorry Lebreau teased you, but she's like that to everybody. Our crew is a family. You're part of it, too."

Lucil released a heavy breath, her shoulders slumping a bit in the dark. "You're a sap, you know that?"

"What can I say? It's a gift."

Snorting, she turned back and gave him a good shove in the right direction, and he stumbled off with a broken roll of laughter.

"Just take that gift somewhere else," she demanded. "Blondie's calling you."

Sure enough, he could hear Maqui shouting out past the camp, his voice crashing through the usual sounds of beasts on the plains.

"Hope Lollygagger Estheim! I'd know that dorky laugh anywhere, so you'd better get your ass over here!"

"Coming!" Hope called, jogging through the high weeds. He glanced back for a moment, but Lucil was already gone.

* * *

 **Endnote: Beta-roomie had a crap-ton of revisions to this segment, so unfortunately all the goofy things she said were not recorded on the edited document ;^;**


	4. Too Much Information

Part 4: Too Much Information

 _[Age: 17] During GC remote base clinic recovery following Hope's first relapse (and the Lightning glitch), shortly after Snow decrystallized._

"What is all this stuff?" Snow asked, carelessly tossing assorted items onto the end of Hope's clinic bed. The bottomless bag of junk in question belonged to Serah, but Snow had discovered it buried in her work cubby, covered with dust.

Hope watched him through the disinterested haze of medication. It was gradually wearing off, though, and the more items Snow hauled out of the mystery bag, the more Hope recognized them.

"Why are you dumping everything out?" he asked lazily, making a slow effort to sit up against his pillows. "If you'd just take one thing at a time…"

Snow laughed heartily at the suggestion. "That's crazy inefficient, little bro. I'd rather get right down to the deepest, darkest secrets of— Agh! What the hell is this?" He fanned one hand in front of his face, holding the open paper packet in question at arm's length. "Packs a punch, whatever it is!"

"Hey, let me see," Hope asked, and Snow swiveled his extended arm toward his nose. Hope took one breath and coughed harshly, his head fogging over anew at the familiar fragrance. Snow took the hint and pulled it out of range.

"Goddess," Hope choked once his throat recovered. "That stuff's more overwhelming than I remember. Guess it ripened with age."

Snow had closed the suspicious packet and tossed it next to the main pile, far enough away to diminish their discomfort. "You know what it is?"

"Yeah. Those are dried moonsoul flowers," Hope said, the rest of the details creeping up from their dark corner of unmentionables. Knowing Snow, it wouldn't stay down for long, and he reconsidered the point of even trying. "I… don't suppose you've heard of them."

"Not a chance," Snow laughed, lounging back in his seat. He crossed his arms behind his head. "Pulsian botany's on my list of things to learn or die. I've been lucky to memorize most o' the deadly poisonous species and a few handy edibles, but the rest are gonna take damn near half my lifetime. Mind saving me the trouble on this one? Some kind of perfume base, I'd guess."

Hope shook his head. He was suddenly very aware of and offended by the IV and sensors attached, and he cursed the heart monitor for marking the gradual acceleration of his pulse.

"It's for an herbal tea," he said. He could only blame persistent boredom for running his mouth through the rest. "It's widely marketed as a natural aphrodisiac, but Lucil said it's not really that—"

"Hold up," Snow cut in, his face suddenly leaned in to an uncomfortable degree. His piercing eyes darted to the heart monitor and back to Hope's reddening face. "You're tellin' me that my beloved fiancée is in possession of some mystical kinky tea?"

"Y-yes," Hope sputtered, unable to keep from laughing at Snow's ridiculous label for the product. Some seconds later, he recovered to add, "But she probably just brought it here to run lab tests on the chemical structure."

Or so he hoped.

Snow stroked his stubble, nodding thoughtfully.

"Makes sense, but I think she's tried it out, too," he said, mostly to himself. "There was this one day, not long after I woke up…"

The chilling fear over where Snow might take their conversation slid down Hope's spine like an ice cube.

"…I'd rather not hear the rest," Hope muttered. He received a rough rub to the head for his trouble before Snow nailed him with the most smug, eager smirk imaginable. The light bulb that had gone off behind his thick skull practically made him glow. Hope shielded his face with his thin fingers.

"Hey, now," Snow dragged out, so long that Hope could picture his eyebrows waggling. "I bet you wouldn't know the first thing about how to deal with a really turned-on, out-to-get-you woman." Snow prodded his shoulder when he refused to respond beyond an intense shudder. "C'mon, Hope. This is a safe environment. A prime opportunity to get some insider tips on uncharted territory."

Hope groaned and burrowed as far into the pillow as he could manage without physically dropping into a safer, Snow-free dimension. "You mean the island of Serah? I'd rather navigate around that, thanks."

"I mean the world of women!" Snow fired back in defense. "It's _general_ knowledge."

Hope raised the sheet like a riot shield. "General knowledge that you got from my _sister_."

"Oh, right, guess I forgot that having female relatives is a totally valid excuse for writing off all intimate knowledge of the female population," Snow charged, laughing drily at his own ludicrous statement.

Hope snapped the sheet down in one swift motion. He no longer cared that his face was flaming and the monitor decided to loudly announce his spiking heart rate. "Fine. If you're going to insist on trying to enlighten me, you can at least keep it vague. I'm not your captive audience by choice."

"Whoa, take it down a notch," Snow said, pressing his hands on the air. "I'll keep it practical, no frills and no names. Deal?"

"I'll try to ignore the fact that you've only got one name in your trick deck."

Snow crossed his arms and staked him with an icy glare. "Don't say that like it's a bad thing."

"Only for my sanity," he grumbled.

"I can live with that. Your future wife'll thank me," Snow declared with his widest shit-eating grin thus far. If he had also requested a high five, Hope would not have blinked. "I know just the place to start. Here's a hint – I'm thinkin' two words."

"What, erogenous zones?" Hope said, the coat of sarcasm on his words so thick that Snow couldn't respond for a full three seconds.

The giant man's mouth tried and failed to form words before he busted up laughing.

"Getting a little ahead of yourself there," Snow said. He slapped Hope's leg through the sheet with a bit more force than necessary but calmed down enough to move on.

"I was gonna say 'kitchen foreplay.'"

Hope clenched the edge of his bedding to anchor himself. "Please, no weird kinks about food. It's hard enough to get used to eating again."

"It's not about food, naysayer," Snow corrected, his brow momentarily knit in aggravation before he took a calming breath. "That's just an expression. A lot of evening routines involve mundane tasks in the kitchen or other places – thus the name. It means if a lady is into you – or vice versa – the best and most common starter tactic is turning an ordinary activity playful. In a sexy way, not a kiddie way. Never does _start_ in the bedroom."

Despite all attempts at resistance, Hope's curiosity was piqued. It sounded like Snow might actually have a clue about the topic. That, and he could recall one such instance of hilariously failed execution of the touted strategy.

"So… that laundry stunt last month? I can only assume you meant it to be sexy when you hid all her undergarments in the broom closet," Hope said. "I don't blame her for assuming you're just an idiot."

"Hey, what happened to keeping it vague?" Snow cut in, nearly pouting as he slumped in his chair. "Besides, that's a bad example."

"I'll say," Hope snorted. "I volunteered to sleep in the hangar so she could kick you out to the couch, genius."

Snow's grin returned in a slow, unsettling creep. "Yeah, good thing you weren't there when I went crawling back with her favorite panties in my teeth."

"Okay, okay, point made," Hope squeaked. He covered his ears and pulled his knees in to meet his forehead. The fragile hope that Snow might stick to practical, non-vomit-inducing information was beginning to shatter. It was a long minute or so before he dared unfurl from the position.

"Maybe I should ask you questions instead," he suggested warily.

 _Maker knows you won't just drop this nonsense._

Snow took that bone like a starved dog. "Sure, fire away!" he declared, pulling out his ratty notebook and a pencil that looked like a sad little stub in his huge fingers.

Hope eyed the materials suspiciously.

"I'd appreciate you not writing down my questions as evidence for future blackmail."

"I'm writing them to cover my own ass," Snow dismissed, "In case you ever try to claim that I scarred you for life by answering a question you asked me yourself."

He had a point. Hope rolled his eyes but stopped protesting the notebook. "You have such faith in me."

"Just get on with the questions."

"All right." Hope sat with his fingertips to his temple for a very long couple of minutes, contemplating both possible questions and the fact that he'd inadvertently made the exchange even more uncomfortable for himself.

Snow leaned both forearms heavily on his thighs. "Any day now."

"I-I guess…" Hope stumbled, trying to choose the least incriminating words. He toyed with the edge of the sheet in his hands. "I've heard it's a better idea to, you know, experiment with different things and people so you aren't such a klutz when it counts, but… most of our friends and family aren't doing that. Am I so dense that I missed the memo about their exploits, or is that advice just bogus in the first place?"

"Hm, not a bad question," Snow muttered. He scribbled the rest of Hope's inquiry and stopped, tapping the chewed eraser end of his pencil on the notebook. When he finally looked up, Hope was surprised at the serious set to his face in spite of the smirk.

"I'll say this. That advice is bogus if it doesn't sit right with you. It's also important to understand that there's a difference between relationships that didn't work out and _exploits_ ," he said, lingering on the last word. "One person's exploit is the other side of someone else's mistake. Every time. And yeah, you can gain experience from mistakes, but the regret isn't worth deliberately seeking opportunities to screw up."

Hope nodded slowly and let that sink in, but it left him with a problem. "So you basically have to choose between being a total novice or piling skeletons in your closet?"

"Hell no," Snow chuckled. "Life just happens. Some people end up with more of a learning curve and others end up with more skeletons, but that's not the point. When you're talking about relationships – romantic or otherwise – it's taking the good with the bad. Whatever that means for the people involved."

"Guess it's one more thing I'll have to learn on the job," Hope sighed.

He looked down at his frail self in the hospital gown. Even knowing that he would regain his health, however temporarily, he couldn't see any way to prepare himself for someone of interest. Someone like Lightning. Snow was right – the idea of experimenting with other people hit his gut wrong. He had originally assumed it was just fear of the unknown or persistent self-consciousness that kept him from even considering intimacy with someone else. That, or some deeply ingrained contradictory notion of personal dignity.

But no. It was her.

He was beginning to feel overwhelmed by his meager chances of _any_ romantic relationships in his future. After all, he had no reason to expect that Lightning would want to be anything more than his friend once she came out of stasis, and the concept of somehow discarding his snowballing feelings for her seemed more impossible than reviving Cocoon.

At the same time, though, a seed of desperation to gather every possible bit of data from Snow took root in his mind and spread rapidly, spawning dozens of questions until he could hardly hold them back.

Snow cocked his head at him, clearly confused by Hope's shift from unfocused brood to intense green stare. Hope didn't quite realize he had looked up and locked on Snow like a target.

"You feeling okay, buddy?"

Hope gathered his courage and took a deep breath. "Can I just ask for advice on women?" he blurted, fumbling to explain himself while he twisted one of the gown's strings around his finger. "All-purpose advice, I mean. Like an intro lesson? Is that too broad for a question?"

"Well, ya just asked me three, all at once," Snow laughed, scratching his head. "Damn. You're lucky I can sum up the most important advice in two words. And it's not 'erogenous zones.'"

Snorting out a laugh, Hope slapped a palm to his forehead. "I'm not even gonna guess this time."

"Aw, but it's really simple," Snow led in, drawing out the tension with a long pause. "I'll give you three guesses, for kicks."

Hope groaned at the delay but fell back against his pillows to stare at the ceiling for inspiration. "Is it 'be creative'?"

"Nice try, but no."

"'Remain calm'?"

"Seriously?" Snow drawled. "Most of 'em aren't as scary as Lightning."

A little jolt went through Hope's chest – whether from that sudden mention of her or in fear of Snow stumbling upon his secret, he couldn't say.

He tried to cover his reaction with words. "I-I'm not so sure about that. Lucil and Lebreau are both pretty intimidating, and even Serah can be scary sometimes."

"Hey, people learn to be intimidating when they have to be," Snow said, shrugging it off. "Better make this last guess count."

Hope gathered all his wits for a final stab. "How about… 'honest communication'?"

Snow rolled with laughter, seconds later recovering to sputter, "Straight outta the textbook! I'd give you points for that one, if it mattered."

"I give up," Hope huffed, letting his arms flop to the sheets on either side. "Just spit it out."

With an air of mischief and mystery, Snow wrote several large letters on his notebook page, behind the cover of his hand. He flipped the notebook over on his lap, maintained his grip, and requested, "Drum roll, please."

Hope rolled his eyes, twisting around just enough to reach the metal bar on one side of his bed. He pattered his hands in a quick, clumsy rhythm until Snow raised the notebook like a sign.

"'Persistence'," Hope read aloud, "'and timing'?" He narrowed his eyes at the chicken-scratch words, not quite sure of how the latter could be applied. "You know it's technically three words, right?"

"Conjunctions don't count," Snow huffed. "I just wasn't about to give your mind _three_ words of creative liberty."

Hope smiled sweetly. "Don't tempt me. I'll keep your super-special buzzwords in mind for the future, but I honestly need more clear-cut tips."

"You want clear-cut?" Snow slapped the notebook and pencil onto the bed beside Hope, laced his fingers, and cracked his knuckles. "Get ready to take some notes."

Snatching the implements, Hope sat up straight and prepared to play scribe. "Can I keep this, by the way?"

"I'll think about it. Just listen up."

And Snow proceeded to talk for twenty minutes straight.

His complete record of Snow-isms, Hope suspected, would have dragged far beyond the thirty-nine rules being covered had he not arbitrarily declared that number from the start. Hope's questions were beginning to pile on themselves, but he wasn't about to interrupt.

When Snow had finally finished, Hope shook out his cramping hand and reviewed the master list. Most of it sounded like common sense relationship pitfalls, like number seventeen: 'You can't cover up an adamantoise in the room' – as if he'd ever presume to hide a glaring issue from someone like Lightning. That struck Hope as both futile and dangerous.

Other things didn't make much sense at all.

"What did you mean by number twenty-one, 'Losers finish first?'" he asked after a moment of consideration, tapping the pencil against his cheek. "Like I should never win a competition? Seems kind of excessive and annoying…"

Snow rubbed at the back of his neck, laughing nervously. "Oh, uh, that one's… yeah. In the context of sexual activity, it's ladies first. Or if you're good enough, both parties together."

"You could've just said so," Hope deadpanned. "Is it really much of a challenge?"

"Decent sex? It is if you're impatient and selfish." Snow shrugged and gestured at nothing in particular. "That's what rule twenty-one is for. Just traces right back to my catch-all advice, anyway – persistence and timing."

Hope nodded absently, studying the list a second time. "I disagree with this other sex rule – number seven." He pointed to a line on the page and explained, "You said 'Stick to secure comfort spots.' But if timing is a must, you'd need to be flexible about location. What if you were both stuck in the middle of the wilderness? Would you insist on finding a padded shelter with a lock? No. You'd go for it."

"Hey, the spirit of that rule was maximizing comfort," Snow protested. He feigned an offended look over the challenged tip. "I think this is just the hormones talking. You've gotta admit you'd at least put down a blanket in some secluded area."

"Sure, if I had a blanket."

"And if you didn't?" Snow pressed.

"I'd figure out how she felt about grass? The floor? Standing up?" he tried, frowning as he puzzled out the options. "Is standing even advisable?"

"Er, it's doable," Snow muttered. "Without much height disparity, anyway." He stopped and raised a suspicious eyebrow. "You're digging pretty far into this."

Hope put the notebook down, a sly little smirk on his face. "Just one last question, I promise."

"Shoot."

"Do you really think the magical kinky tea works?"

"Well…" Snow began, his eyes darting to the closed curtain and back as if he expected an intrusion. "If she really did use the stuff on that day I'm thinkin' of, yeah. Maybe a little too well. We were shot the next morning."

Loathe to gather any further details, Hope retreated to his pillows and stretched, subtly dropping one hand past the edge of the bedframe to push the assistance call button. "I'll keep that in mind."

"You'd better," Snow threw out, chuckling to himself. "Gonna have to work up some stamina if you plan on using anything like that."

In less than half a minute, Serah's intern popped into the room and Snow clammed up. The short woman all but teleported to the monitors, squinted at the display, and gave Hope's multitude of sensors and connections a cursory inspection.

"Something bothering you, kiddo?" she asked as usual, and Hope shook his head.

"Sorry, I must've bumped the button."

Her eyes scanned the random items scattered over the bed. "What's all this about?" she asked, looking pointedly at Snow.

"Hey, I'll put it all up, I swear," he said in a rush, grabbing for the notebook first. He shoved it into an inside pocket of his trench coat.

The medic poked at the rest of the things and ultimately picked up the mysterious paper package. She took one whiff and froze.

Murder in her eyes, she glared Snow into the wall. "Seriously?" she huffed, turning on her heel with the suspect item still pinched between thumb and forefinger. "I'm confiscating this contraband. Just clean up your mess, _Mister_ Villiers."

Once she had left the space, loudly yanking the curtain closed, he turned to Hope with wide, bewildered eyes.

"She knows about the mystical kinky tea?"

"Guess it's still popular," Hope said with a shrug. "And probably not endorsed by the military. But hey, Serah's intern thinks you're a pervy fiancé, now." He capped it off with a cheeky grin. "The truth is out."

Snow face-planted on the edge of the bed. "Man, she stole Serah's stash. How am I gonna replace it?"

Chuckling pitilessly, Hope patted the black bandanna. "Ask Lebreau. If you want it that bad."

"Yeah right," Snow groaned, his voice muffled in the bedding. "She'd never let me live this down."

"Then ask Lucil," Hope suggested. "She might know other suppliers."

Snow finally raised his head and looked at Hope like he'd lost his mind. "Maybe you missed the fact that Lucil _despises_ me."

"Hey, she always bristles at nicknames," Hope defended, struggling to hold in his laughter. He couldn't help but recall Maqui's telling of the Vestige incident after Snow's return. "And I have it on good authority that she was just a tad tipsy when she chucked that glass at you."

An unsettling but joyous revelation passed over Snow's face. "I got it. Why don't you ask her for me?" he exclaimed, clamping both gigantic hands on Hope's shoulders. "C'mon, please? She adores you, and she'll be coming by to visit any time now. It's a no-brainer."

"I ought to protest on moral grounds," Hope sighed. "Give me one good reason why I should enable your quest to repopulate Pulse with my sister."

Snow grinned. "You'd get to be an uncle."

Hope hummed to himself as he entertained the thought. He remembered all the good times with Dajh growing up, and he had to admit that the spawn of Serah and Snow would likely be a happy, sweet-tempered thing. Or several happy, sweet-tempered things.

Still, he wasn't terribly confident in his ability to play the middle-man. "She might refuse to cooperate if you're involved, even coming from me," he argued, dropping his volume a notch. "She doesn't _adore_ me, you know."

"Oh yes she does," Snow insisted.

"Why are you pestering me about this?" Hope asked, unsettled by the heat creeping up his neck. Some part of him disagreed with his own claim, and it was beginning to affect the heart monitor.

Snow cast a sideways glance at the screen. "Can't lie to the polygraph, eh?" He rubbed his hands together, smirk growing by the second. "This is gonna make things interesting."

"Shouldn't there be a rule against interrogation during recovery?" Hope huffed. He untied the front of his gown to reveal a few of the sensors. "I'm not hooked up to this stuff for your entertainment."

The familiar look of dejection passed over Snow's face. He brushed it off and reclined dangerously far back in his seat, rocking on just the two back legs. "A'right, I'll cut you a break. But I did just give you a gold mine of tips. Seems like you oughtta be able to find it in your heart to help me recover Serah's tea."

Hope hated himself for conceding to that logic, but it held water – and he _had_ been the one to call the intern. He took a deep breath and crossed his arms. "Fine, I'll talk to Lucil about it. That's all."

"You could probably bribe her, y'know—"

"Don't push it."

* * *

 **Endnote: Apparently I saved the best for last. Beta-roomie had a field day!**

When Snow starts to speculate over what's in the packet: Hahaha just avoid the conversation Hope ;P

At Snow's coined phrase for the dried flower blooms: Ok you're right, I do love Snow's part, if only for the sheer bluntness of calling it mystical kinky tea XD

When Snow explains that he could provide tips on uncharted territory: Ughhhh this is the worst one yet, WHY SNOW. WHY WOULD YOU THINK THIS. Poor Hope

At Hope's quip that he's only got one woman 'in his trick deck': "Oh yeah? How many women do you have on your list?" "My list? I've got my list right here. It's called my MARRIAGE LICENSE" [high five]

When Snow claims that Hope's future wife will thank him: I genuinely doubt it, Snow. Because I know his future wife. And she would just as soon punch you.

On the 'kitchen foreplay' comment: Oh, yeah, this is def starting out suuuuper vague GOOD JOB SNOW. -_-;

When Snow explains that he means in a sexy way, not a kiddie way: So no strip!Elmo's Playhouse games? That's not a thing?…bet we could still find it on the internet

After Snow mentions going back to Serah with the panties: Hope, in solidarity of all little siblings everywhere, let me chime in here to say: Ew.

When Snow explains that he's taking down the questions to cover his own ass: That is a weirdly cunning and adept bit of foresight, Snow.

After Snow remarks that not all women are like Lightning: Haha Snow totally has his number, what a dork

At the 'ladies first' explanation: Hahaha good advice Snow ;P

Over Hope's response that people would just go for it even in the wilderness: No. Ew, Hope. There are bugs and rocks and dirt and shit.

When Hope mentions the incident of Lucil throwing the glass at Snow: Also: please, Snow, like that was the first time someone's thrown a glass at you, let's be honest here


End file.
